Who dat Saint?: New Orleans coaching assistant preps for Super Bowl

Friday

Jan 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2010 at 7:17 AM

It’s music to Mike Cerullo’s ears. All over national TV news channels were images of Saints fans going crazy (of course, crazy is a relative term in the home of Mardi Gras). Their football team had just beaten the Minnesota Vikings in overtime to advance to the Super Bowl as National Football Conference Champions.

Joshua Boyd

It’s music to Mike Cerullo’s ears. All over national TV news channels were images of Saints fans going crazy (of course, crazy is a relative term in the home of Mardi Gras). Their football team had just beaten the Minnesota Vikings in overtime to advance to the Super Bowl as National Football Conference Champions.

“That was the most exciting football game I’ve ever been involved with as a player or a coach,” said Cerullo, a Middleton, Mass., native and current coaching assistant for the Super Bowl-bound Saints. “It’s still surreal right now. The two best teams made it to the NFC championship and we didn’t expect anything but the best. I told someone a week before the game I thought it’d go down to the wire and into overtime. I knew it.”

Cerullo, a member of the Saints organization since 2007, has been busy ever since his team won that game.

The team has been brushing up on what it does best on the field, and what has gotten it to this high point: its first Super Bowl appearance in a 43-year history.

“One great thing about this team is that we believe in what we teach,” said Cerullo. “We believe in the routine we have. We’ve added plays, but we’re just business as usual. If a better team beats us, then they beat us.”

Cerullo’s job involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work. And when the cameras pan the field at Sun Life Stadium in Miami on Super Bowl Sunday, don’t strain your eyes looking for Cerullo. He won’t be on the turf — he is one of the Saints’ six “eyes in the sky.”

“During the games, I’m up in the booth [i.e. press box]. If the defensive coordinator [Gregg Williams] wants to know how many times they’ve passed on a 3rd-and-3, for instance, I’ll get him that number,” said Cerullo. “I do all the grunt work. I’ll watch protections during a game, another guy will look at route concepts, another guy will be looking at just the other teams’ running backs. There are three offensive and three defensive guys up in the booth, and I’m one of the defensive guys.”

Before the game, it seems that Cerullo’s duties are endless.

“I help out all the position coaches, I do all the film breakdown, the scouting reports — all the preparation behind the scenes,” Cerullo said. “We’ll put together a game plan off the film. We’ll see what will be good against the opponent and what wouldn’t be good. I’m responsible for putting it together.”

Of course, these Saints football players are professionals, and they know what needs to be done. Cerullo added that players like Drew Brees and Jeremy Shockey make his job easier.

“Drew always has the whole offense here at 5 or 5:30 in the morning,” said Cerullo. “They’ve been doing that all year, and they’ve been doing it since the first year I got here. I’ve been around many teams, but I can say there is not one guy on this team that I wouldn’t want to be friends with.

“I was with the Atlanta Falcons [in 2006] and half the team couldn’t stand each other, but this whole Saints team goes out to a restaurant once a week,” Cerullo said. “They like being around each other.”

While working with the team in New Orleans midweek, Cerullo was a couple of days away from having to pack his bags for Miami.

“It’ll either be Sunday or Monday. They haven’t told us exactly, but we’ll put together the whole game plan these next few days before we go,” said Cerullo.

Finding his own way

You won’t find a job listing for a National Football League coaching position on monster.com or in your local newspaper help wanted ads. It took an effort of nearly half a decade until the Atlanta Falcons hired Cerullo in 2006.

“In the NFL, it’s a closed club. You generally have three ways in — a former player, a son or relative of someone already in the NFL, or you make your own inroads. You have to create your own buzz,” said Cerullo.

“I took the necessary steps to climb to coaching at the Division 1A college level at Syracuse,” said Cerullo. “Every year, at my own expense, I would go down to the Senior Bowl, which is heavily scouted by the NFL. I’d just introduce myself and hand resumes out. After people saw me the third year, they were asking ‘Which team are you with now?’ Even back when I was coaching with Northeastern and Curry, I’d send letters to every team. Guys would say ‘Are you the guy who sent me letters for five years?’”

Cerullo became friends with some of the Atlanta Falcons scouts and ended up taking an internship in the scouting department. “I stuck through November or December of that year,” said Cerullo.

In 2005, Cerullo and other members of the coaching staff he worked with at Syracuse were fired. Former Syracuse head coach Paul Pasqualoni (1991-2004) surfaced in Dallas as tight ends and later linebackers coach of the Cowboys. Pasqualoni worked alongside current Saints head coach Sean Payton, who was the Cowboys’ quarterbacks coach and later the assistant head coach.

In 2006, Payton was announced as the 14th head coach in New Orleans Saints history. Nearing the end of his fifth season, he’s already the fourth-longest serving coach in a turbulent Saints history and he has the best winning percentage as a coach in Saints history.

“I sent a letter to Coach Payton and said ‘I worked with Paul, so if you have any questions about me, ask Paul,’” Cerullo said. “Coach Payton thought about it for a week and said ‘I don’t have anything for this year.’ That season ended with them losing the NFC championship to the Bears. He called me soon after and said ‘I lost a guy. Come in for an interview,’ and it really wasn’t an interview. He pretty much told me I had the job.

“I know it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t plug away,” he added.

Now, Cerullo lives in an apartment almost within walking distance of the Saints’ practice facility and he’s looking forward to marrying his fiancee Kim Jones this summer. As excited as he is for that, he knows (and surely Kim understands) that all his attention is with the Saints and their mission to forever make that old derisive nickname “Aints” as obsolete as floppy disks.

“When we played Miami this year, me and the other assistants carved our names in the press box and wrote ‘We’ll be back.’ Now, we’ve got to go there and cover that back up,” Cerullo said.

Or, possibly, scratch it out and write a new carving: “Who dat been to de Super Bowl?”

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